Will IT specialists become Maytag repairmen?

The Gartner industry research group made an interesting prediction the other day that went largely unnoticed: The demand for information technology specialists, it said, could fall by 40 percent in the next five years. The projection was startling at first but, upon reflection, seems entirely plausible.

Take, for example, the once-vaunted position of Webmaster or Webmistress. A decade ago, these jobs were considered essential to any Web operation. But as tools got smarter and HTML less foreign, the duties of that position were largely absorbed by others.

As sophisticated technology continues to become ubiquitous in everything from cars to copiers, functions that used to be the province of experts will be increasingly handled by the rank and file of companies in every industrial sector. In fact, it has even been suggested that customer support as we know it may eventually become extinct. So it's not beyond reason that IT specialists of today may become the digital equivalent of the Maytag repairmen tomorrow.

Blog community response:

"Tying yourself to the core of a business involves mastering both business and technology. If all you have to offer is commodity skills, you will find yourself either unemployed, or working for rates that are lower than what you would like to get."
--surviveoutsourcing.com

"The stereotype of a person working in IT is that of a nerd, working at least 70 hours a week, having trouble with his social life, and collecting Spiderman comics or Star Trek episodes. The real IT persons are said to be difficult to talk to, especially when it is not about bits, bytes and other small stuff. They are often accused of not being able to see the big picture. They are specialists in the true sense of the word."
--Loek Bakker's weblog

"Some dude named Gartner alleges that the need for workplace geeks will be going down in the near future. Well I foresee the lame consultant being replaced by the magic eight ball..."
--Uber_Technica